


The Ghost of You (Keeps Me Awake)

by jolybird



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen, Immortality, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-05
Updated: 2015-07-05
Packaged: 2018-04-07 18:18:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4273230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jolybird/pseuds/jolybird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin didn’t know if she was a ghost and by this point it didn't really matter anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ghost of You (Keeps Me Awake)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [The Merlin Arts Fest 2015](http://themerlinartsfest.tumblr.com/)! Week three prompts written: A silence falls over the still night as the sky begins to fog & [color](http://www.nextmet.fi/Cerakote%20kuvagalleria/album/Pinnoitteet/slides/Cerakote%20C-143%20Stop%20Light%20Red.jpg). 
> 
> Yo I wrote this in like seriously a half hour, I couldn't shake the image I had in my mind.

The first time he had seen her again had been at Gwen’s deathbed all those years ago. They had been old then and the winter that year had been violent. Merlin had jolted awake from where he was asleep at his friend’s bedside, her hand clutched in his, and his heart stopped when he realized who was standing on the other side of the bed. She looked so impossibly young and whole, dressed in red with a tiara balanced on her head. Tears fell from her eyes as she watched Gwen and something in her expression caused Merlin to look to the Queen.

His body went cold and when he glanced back across the bed, eyes gold from casting every healing spell he knew, Morgana was gone.

And so was Gwen.

The next time was the night Percival died and then after that it seemed like whenever anyone close to him died, Morgana was there. She wasn’t alive—that much he could figure out from the fleeting moments—her cheeks were too round, her eyes too bright. She wasn’t transparent, she looked as real as anyone else, but she vanished in the blink of an eye and never said a word.

Merlin assumed she was a sort of silent banshee. He had done so many terrible things for Arthur. Morgana had been his friend and he killed her, her haunting him during the worst moments of his life was some sort of payback, a retribution for all the times he had done wrong.

The banshee idea was slowly destroyed, however, as the years passed by and Morgana began showing up more and more frequently without death following at her heels. The more often she appeared, the more she seemed to realize Merlin could see her. After a while, she began to speak to him. She never spoke about the past; always the present and occasionally the future. It was almost a game between the two of them, how civil they could be to one another, how long they could go without mentioning Camelot and neither had lost yet. After a couple hundred years of it they became something like acquaintances again.

Merlin leaned his back against the oak and stretched one of his legs out in front of him as he put his cigarette to his lips and breathed in. Apparent immortality made him immune to well, pretty much everything, so over the years he became the biggest hypocrite in the world (as Morgana liked to point it out when she was in particularly good spirits). He smoke, drank, injected terrifyingly lethal combinations into his veins, and made a habit of being reckless with his safety. Heaven help anyone who tried to do the same; his immortality served only to highlight the rest of the world’s mortality. He cursed strangers left and right—they’d get immediately ill at the taste of cigarette smoke, they’d sing children’s educational cartoon theme songs after their third drink. He had seen so many lives cut short throughout the years, he couldn’t bear to let anyone waste what time they had on something as stupid as cigarettes or drugs.

Merlin exhaled and watched as the smoke drifted off into the fog surrounding him. It was thick tonight; he could see no more than ten feet in front of him,. the lights of the houses across the lake were nothing but tiny, dim specks of light. The lake had changed over the past however many hundred years but of course he couldn’t leave it. He couldn’t leave Arthur. There had been years—decades when he had left, left England, left Europe but he always came back before long. He was tethered, waiting for the man he couldn’t save.

He rested his head against the tree with a dull thud and watched as Morgana’s figure appeared out of the fog. She looked around the graveyard, overgrown, deserted, across the street from the lake—the perfect place to sit undisturbed. “I thought your Romantic phase was over.”

Before Merlin could respond, another figure appeared at her right. A glint of metal caught his eye and even after all these years he thought _sword_ and not _knife_. A moment later, however, he realized that it was indeed a sword they were holding and he looked up to the figure’s face.

His cigarette dropped to the ground and he scrambled to his feet. “Freya?”

The woman brushed past Morgana and held the sword out to Merlin, “Something terrible’s happened.”

Automatically, Merlin took the offered sword— _Excalibur_ — he realized suddenly and the world felt both larger and smaller at once.

“My brother’s back.”

Merlin looked up to Morgana sharply, she had the faintest hint of a smirk on her face and—her brother was—Arthur was—

Another figure appeared at her left and Merlin took a step towards them before he recognized who it was. He pushed Freya behind him—he could physically touch her—did that mean Morgana had been physical all these years as well?—and brandished Excalibur.

Nimueh laughed, “What’s that supposed to do to me? Are you going to kill me again? Do you think that scares me?”

“What do you mean Arthur’s back?” Merlin demanded.

“Come on, we’ll take you to him. That’s why we’re here.” Freya’s voice was soft in comparison to his own.

“You’re so loyal. So many years, waiting for your King to return.” Nimueh mused as Freya took his hand and pulled him though the gravestones.

Morgana and Nimueh followed behind them silently as they made their way towards the lake. Whether Morgana had been a ghost or not, haunting him through the centuries didn’t matter anymore. His wait was over. Arthur was back. The fog pressed in on them and the night was still, different than what it had been before. The night hadn’t felt like this since Arthur was last at his side, when he dragged him across the country, desperate to get him to this exact spot, to save him.

Merlin could almost feel the blood draining from his face as they crossed the street and made their way to the water’s edge. A figure lay unconscious in the waves and Freya let go of his hand as Merlin raced forward, turning them over and gasping.

“ _Arthur_.” He grabbed his wrist and—he had a pulse. Arthur was alive. “What’s going on? Why is he back? How is he back? Did you pull him from the lake? Why are you here? What happened?” Merlin scrambled for any sort of control. He hadn’t felt control since that night in the tavern, right before Morgana took away his magic. He was desperate for the barest hint of some.

Freya smiled at him sadly as Nimueh regarded him, looking impressed for some reason. Morgana stepped forward, eyes on her brother. She knelt down next to Merlin and gently pried his hand off of Arthur’s wrist. It was a strange sensation—touching her again. He realized numbly that he had been holding Excalibur the last time they touched as well and the sword fell from his hand. His free hand went to Arthur, just a gentle touch on his shoulder to remind him that this was _real_. Morgana took Merlin’s hand and squeezed it, looking him in the eye. “We’re doing everything to help you Merlin. You and Arthur aren’t alone in this.” Merlin squeezed back and Morgana smiled, her eyes sincere.

Before he could say anything, he blinked and the three women were gone. The night air was damp and heavy on his hand, still outstretched, like he had been touching nothing but the fog. Merlin stared at the darkness where they had been for a long moment before he started to pull Arthur out of the waves. It was going to be eventful smuggling an unconscious man and a sword into his hotel room but no matter what had happened and what was still going to happen, together they would handle anything destiny threw at them. He had to believe it.


End file.
